


let me weigh your courage

by zianourry



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Children, I'm Sorry, Slow Updates, for now, harry and louis are both kids, the beginning is also rather vague but hopefully it'll get better
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-05
Updated: 2014-07-05
Packaged: 2018-02-07 14:32:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1902600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zianourry/pseuds/zianourry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When two boys meet inside a strangely alluring but also terribly unnerving forest, they seem to create an unexplainable bond between them. <br/>When both of them stumble into a rather dangerous shadow and find a circle made out of wood, they realize that life might not be as simple as their teachers always told them.</p>
<p> ''Math was fucking useless after all.'' Louis said this aloud against a rather small tree, not daring to think about the consequences of using the word. After all his mum always knew when he'd used a bad word.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let me weigh your courage

**Author's Note:**

> It's summer and I'm already preparing for next school year, hooray for me. So updates will be terribly slow. I wasn't planning on already posting it but ... why not eh :p
> 
> English is not my first language nor my second so forgive me for any terrible mistakes (do tell me where you see them so I can change it though!)

**It was as the gates opened and fire spilled around him, licking his ankles in an almost sensual movement that men knew he was filled with a dangerous allure. A voice like dripping honey , so low and beguiling that none dared to say no to any request. He was a nightmare and yet she fell in love with angles of his face and the shadows curling around his body. It was after two years of stealthy looks that called her his own. A year later, the villagers were filled with distrust. A detest towards her knowledge of flora around them and the detest drove them towards an assault that would end badly for all.**   
  


**Part 1.1 – Bound by faith  
** _It’s not your choice. It is in some way but never the option you are praying for right now. You can take a step inside the circle and stay or you can leave. I can’t tell you what happens when you leave but it won’t be pretty._

It was a clear afternoon with the sun heating up the surroundings. The grand trees and their leaves created a pattern of shadows on the muddy ground of the forest. Somewhere inside the maze of trees there was a small clearing with a few tree stumps. A small boy was sitting on one of them. He was red faced and squinting a bit against the beaming sunlight, on his cheeks were wet trails.   
  
A few hundred meters away there was a small square created by four large trees. All four of them were tied together with a thick, dirty rope and covered with wood and sheets. The sheets moved in sync with the wind and the whole creation seemed a bit unstable. A boy with cerulean eyes was trying to tie another rope whilst holding up a large wooden stick at the same time. His tongue poked out a bit in concentration. The shadows twirled over him in time with the soft summer wind that moved the green leaves of the trees.   
  
With a sigh he dropped the stick again and let it crash to the ground. He’d been trying to stabilize his base for hours now but the whole thing seemed to become more and more unsteady with every breeze. Even the rope that he tied to the trees didn’t seem to stay put. It had seemed so amazing when he thought of it, his own place in the middle of the forest that laid just a few blocks away from his house. It was amazing, but at the same time the forest seemed to unsettle him. An eerie sensation that crawled over the ground, up in the trees, covering his skin like a cold, clammy blanket.   
Once again he picked up the stick and this time he took the rope in his left hand instead of his right, thinking that the movement would give him a terrific solution. After two minutes of fumbling around he dropped it again and this time one the sheets fell towards the ground too. This made him kick one of the grey and muddy stones and curse. Softly of course because even if his mum wasn’t here, she’d still notice it when he entered the house. For some unexplainable reason it was some kind of power that most mums had.   
( _He didn’t know it but as soon as he did something questionable he would bit his lip and hold his arms behind his back, swinging his hips from side to side while chatting with his mum).  
  
_ Giving up on the shoddy creation of a base he decided to explore his surroundings a little more. Even though he grew up close to the forest he’d never seen every part. They only took the save paths that seemed to run through the forest when he went with his family. His friends would rather play football than chase each other and explore the forest. At first he had asked them every time he went here but at some point he’d given up. Between the trees there was a route with strange twists and turns, an obstacle course built out of tree-trunks. He almost twisted his ankle because of a root that seemed to leap up from the ground.   
After almost ten minutes of walking he was already certain that he was terribly lost, every tree had some semblance of the other and he _almost_ didn’t know if he was walking in small circles. He wasn’t obviously because only babies got lost, like his sisters. They didn’t know much and every time they did something he had to help them because he was their _big_ brother. He loved them dearly, but at times they seemed to drain all the energy from his body.   
  
A soft sniffling sound drifted past his ear and he slowly lifted his head towards it, almost with curiosity. Of course it wasn’t actual curiosity because mum had told him that grown up boys should behave themselves and he was almost thirteen and had his own base! He was definitely able to contain this _curiosity._ After a avoiding a few bushes and almost breaking his other ankle on a tree root ( _and that one wasn’t there when he looked, he was certain_ ) he had finally reached a small clearing. Where there had been a trail of darkness and lingering shadows in the other parts of the forest you could only find sunlight here. It almost looked like it wasn’t a part of the forest, as if he suddenly stepped into a portal and landed in another dimension. Inside the clearing there were a few tree stumps and on one them there sat a…   
  
His eyes widened for a second in fear before he realized that the form was a hunched over boy and not fearless monster that would rip him apart. The thought would’ve been ridicule had he not played that videogame with Zayn, the boy living next door. _It wasn’t the videogame that his mum forbid him to play, it wasn’t._ The shoulders of the boy shook slightly while the sniffling sound continued.  
It didn’t take him long to know that the boy was crying and it was the sound that made him move forward in a hurry. He only had four sisters but that didn’t mean that the _big brother instinct_ wouldn’t take over when he saw other tiny muppet things crying. Before he actually consciously noticed it he was already standing in front of the boy. Who, as he looked upwards, turned out to have most shiny, green eyes he’d ever seen before. Eyes filled with hopefulness, fear, sadness and a little bit of anger. ‘’You should leave if you’re going to be a meanie.’’  
  
It baffled him that a clearly distraught boy could sound so polite while almost trying to order him away. Trying to push away the part of him that was annoyed, he grinned. ‘’I’m gonna stay if that’s alright with you.’’ He tried to appear as mature as he could while he sat down on the slightly moss covered tree trunk.   


It turned out that the boy’s name was Harry ( _I told you it’s not Harold! Of course it is Harold_ ). He’d ran away from his home in a fit because his mum was insistent on throwing out his stuffed rabbit. By the time the young boy had stopped talking he knew more about him than he did of most boys on the playground from school ( _I like my tea with a little bit of milk and there is always a chocolate cookie beside the mug and did you know that my cat has four brown spots her name is Spot because of the spots and she ate my goldfish!)._  
After a while he’d found out where the boy lived and he decided to bring him home, knowing that his mum would be worried. His mum always was after he’d run off without telling her.   
  
‘’Let’s get you back home yeah?’’ Harry nodded albeit a bit reluctant.  
‘’What about Mr. Snuffles though?’’ Louis pulled a face at the name but said nothing about it, it was Harry’s toy after all.  
‘’I’ll try to talk to her okay? Maybe I can ask my mum what to do,’’ and with those words Harry’s face lit up like a Christmas tree, slowly moving towards home. Neither of the boys noticed the tendril of black following them, trying to catch their ankles.


End file.
